Lack Arcade Coffee Table

Description: I had purchased a Raspberry Pi (RPi) credit card sized computer and wanted to do something fun with it. I saw another article on how to make an arcade coffee table and thought I could do it easier by hacking an Ikea Lack table.

The Lack is easily hacked by cutting it’s hollow core material using a utility knife. I outlined the shape of the LCD monitor and carefully cut out the hole.

Next I cut out the holes for the joystick, buttons, and control board area. Initially I tried using a 1 1/8″ hole cutter to cut through, but it was tricky. I ended up using that hole cutter to score the shape of the holes and then finishing the cut with a utility knife.

The RPi runs a version of Linux. I hacked together a simple front-end for selecting the games in Python using some sample code I found on pygame.org. For the games, I used a version of advmame compiled for the RPi.

Sound is provided by a pair of cheap speakers I got from Walmart. These items are hidden by a small enclosure I made that is glued to the bottom of the table. It also has a wireless keyboard and mouse for programming and configuration. In it’s final form, the table is completely controlled by the joystick and buttons so the keyboard is only used occasionally for fine tuning.

The kids love playing the the old arcade games like Donkey Kong and Galaga.

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The Author

Jules IKEAHacker "I am Jules, the engine behind IKEAHackers and the one who keeps this site up and running. My mission is to capture all the wonderful, inspiring, clever hacks and ideas for our much loved IKEA items".

Wiring was easy since I used a keyboard encoder. I just tied on lead of all the buttons together for ground and then the lead was attached to the corresponding input on the encoder.
The monitor is just plugged into a power strip inside the little box I built. It’s always on. The cat likes to sleep on it because it’s slightly warm!

Love this hack. My Pi is on order and I want to do something similar to your project. Wife Acceptance Factor is a concern for me as well I’m a coder, but I don’t have a lot of hardware experience. Think this is something a noob could handle?

About the monitor – how do you power cycle it? Does it turn on without having to press a physical button?

The pic I posted was when the table was in our front room during the holidays. I then moved it into the loft where the kids hang out. However, while it was in the frontroom, the WAF (wife acceptance factor) was relatively high!

I want this for our living room but I’m not a programmer, any chance you could make a list of what is needed? basically a step by step how to guide, Raspberry Pi and how to download the files to it, how to connect the LCD etc.

Like I said earlier, I kind of made it up as I went along. The only thing I can really share that is re-usable, is the frontend that I hacked together in Python. I can share that somewhere or send it to you. I need to package up the latest version.

I’ve been working on the exact same project. Except I used the smaller LACK side table as I am working on putting the controls on a side box made out of 1/4″ plywood – I was worried the thin wood wouldn’t support the forces put on the joystick – and it was on sale for $9.99. Check out Shea Silverman’s blog for his PiMame image http://blog.sheasilverman.com/

Thanks for all the kind words on my project. As far as a tutorial goes, I kind of made it up as I went along. I still need to backup the config files and python script as I continue to tweak it. I think it’s pretty stable these days but I may have to remove a few games where the audio is weird or the game doesn’t work at all. I filtered out the MAME ROMs to only include game that use a joystick and up to 4 buttons. Most of the games work, but some don’t. I may also need to see if there is an updated MAME emulator out there.If there are any more questions, post them and I’ll try to answer them.

The wiring was pretty straightforward. I connected all the ground terminals together, then wired the other side to each of the inputs on the keyboard encoder.The Pythong front-end was also very simple. I found some code at pygame.org for a more elaborate front-end, but I couldnt get it to work. I hacked it up so it just presented a simple menu driven by a text file. I can post it somewhere if you’d like.

OMG! You have inspired me with this great article. I think I might make a standing traditional style arcade machine but thanks for the great idea. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to have a look at some of my families carpentry skills on our website? http://robinsoncontracts.comYour feedback would be great, thanks

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